


past is present is future

by rangerhitomi



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Alternate Universe - Domestic, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bars and Pubs, Happy Ending, M/M, Relationship Problems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-15
Updated: 2016-06-15
Packaged: 2018-07-15 03:50:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7206503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerhitomi/pseuds/rangerhitomi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They first meet at a disgusting bar with dirty bathrooms while Ryoga’s drinking the worst cheap beers and he’s so embarrassed by the whole situation that he gives the cute guy asking for his phone number a fake name and doesn’t come clean until their third date (and only then because Kaito is giving him hell for it).</p>
            </blockquote>





	past is present is future

**Author's Note:**

> a commission piece for thislittlekumquat on tumblr, who wanted happy ending sharkbait domestics

__It’s Friday, the week was terrible, and all Ryoga wants is to drink disgusting cheap beers until they no longer taste disgusting (he’s three in and has not met his goal). The bar he goes to is equally disgusting—so it’s fitting—and the bathrooms are always dirty and never have hot water or soap and he’s pretty sure it’s violating some health codes or something, but it’s within walking distance of his apartment and that’s honestly all he cares about, because he hates taking the train when he’s drunk and he plans on becoming very drunk tonight.

The beers still taste like wheaty hairspray mixed with cat pee and he’s starting to wonder if it would be cheaper just to go with one small shot of something to expedite this process when the door opens and a guy who looks about Ryoga’s age walks in by himself. He has longish black hair tied in a messy ponytail and his loose magenta-streaked bangs fall into soft red eyes and Ryoga finds himself staring for a minute too long.

He’s cute, Ryoga decides, or maybe the beer decides for him, _no it’s definitely you_ , and when the cute guy approaches the counter next to Ryoga, squints up at the specials board, and asks the bartender for some mango something or other, Ryoga’s still staring.

The guy tucks a loose strand of hair behind his ear. He has three piercings. He’s also wearing a shirt with cutoff sleeves and Ryoga’s not _sure_ but there _might_ be a tattoo on his collarbone. “Hi,” he says casually, and takes his drink from the bartender. It has one of those tacky paper umbrellas in it.

The guy takes a sip of his mango whatever and wrinkles his nose. He sets it back down. “Hey, could you watch this seat for me? I have to run to the washroom.”

Ryoga grunts in response. He had been trying to say “sure” but his voice had gotten all weird, which was fine because he could at least pretend to be emotionally detached. Guys liked that, right? Or was it girls? Cats? Pet lizards?

Anyway, Ryoga learns three things about this guy in this simple interaction: first, he probably didn’t drink with any regularity, seeing as he clearly didn’t have a go-to drink; second, he was probably naïve for trusting a complete stranger to “watch his drink” without thinking about the stranger slipping something in it; and third, he had clearly never been to this bar or he would sure as hell not have gone straight to the bathrooms. Oh, and he was _probably_ gay, seeing as this entire bar catered to a very particular clientele. So four things, really.

But Ryoga doesn’t want to make any assumptions, since it is also perfectly possible this guy came to the bar because it was close to his apartment and he hated taking the train.

(He tries not to entertain _fifth: he’s kind of into you maybe because he chose to sit next to you_ because between the two of them, only sixteen words had been uttered and exactly zero of them had been Ryoga’s, unless he counts his “sure” grunt, which he doesn’t because it wasn’t a word any more than a baby saying “daaaa daaaa” was consciously saying “dada,” which wasn’t actually a word.)

The guy’s gone for about two minutes when a rather large man takes the seat Ryoga is supposed to be saving. He’s large in the sense that his biceps are probably as big around as Ryoga’s thigh, and it’s one hundred percent muscle, which makes Ryoga one hundred percent sure he’s not going to say “hey, the cute guy who’s in the bathroom right now is sitting there, could you move, please.”

The new man orders a shot, and then a second shot, and a third, and Ryoga finds himself praying for this man’s liver when the cute guy comes back and frowns at Ryoga from behind the man.

Ryoga holds up his hands placidly, like there was anything he could have done to keep this from happening— _seriously, did he expect me to have a throwdown with anyone who tried to take this seat?—_ and Cute Guy leans between Ryoga and Big Guy to take his drink. He smells like sandalwood and fuck, Ryoga really likes sandalwood. Like, a lot.

Big Guy grabs Cute Guy’s arm. Cute Guy freezes, his hand wrapped around the small glass. “Buy you a drink?” Big Guy slurs.

“Uh—“

Cute Guy is wide-eyed and focused on his wrist, which has a large, probably sweaty hand clasped on it, and he tries to stammer out a “no thank you” but Big Guy is clearly not going to accept a no, so Ryoga decides to take matters into his own hands.

“There you are, uh—“ and he immediately sees the flaw in his love life, where he has never had another guy call him a pet name and therefore isn’t even sure what gay men called each other— “babe,” which sounds all right, “I have had like six beers waiting for you to get here.”

Cute Guy gives Ryoga a skeptical look but his fear of Big Guy probably outweighs his thoughts of Who-The-Fuck-Is-This-Loser.mp3 because he lets go of his drink and wraps his now-free arm around Ryoga’s neck (to which Ryoga promptly stops breathing). “Oh _hey,_ um…” He grimaces a little. ( _Number six: he_ also _has never had anybody call him a pet name before._ ) “ _Babe_ , I’m so glad to see you.”

Big Guy lets go of Cute Guy’s arm. Cute Guy immediately puts it on Ryoga’s chest. He’s probably acutely aware of Ryoga’s hammering heart and Ryoga wants to evaporate.

“You… together?” Big Guy says finally, eyeing Ryoga as pensively as he could while actually staring about four inches away from Ryoga’s actual face.

“Yeah.” Cute Guy snakes an arm around Ryoga’s waist and pulls him to his feet. “C’mon… um, baby cakes, let’s go dance.”

 _Baby cakes?_ Ryoga thinks, and Number Six is reinforced, but he lets Cute Guy lead him to the dance floor near the karaoke machine. Some moderately talented man is pouring out his soul to some kind of tragic unrequited ballad, which Ryoga can relate to.

Ryoga twitches a little as Cute Guy places his hands on Ryoga’s hips and dances a little too close, with Ryoga getting a good whiff of sandalwood. He’s trying to figure out how Cute Guy smells so good or whether he should return the gesture when Cute Guy leans up and breathes into Ryoga’s ear, “Is he looking?”

“No,” Ryoga replies, glancing over Cute Guy’s shoulder toward the bar where Big Guy is carrying a tray of shots to a nearby table full of rowdy homosexuals.

Cute Guy sighs in relief and lets go of Ryoga’s waist. Ryoga is entirely disappointed in this gesture. “Good. Thanks a bunch.”

Ryoga shrugs but when Cute Guy flashes him a slightly dimpled smile and gives him a slight wave, mumbling something about _this place isn’t for me,_ he knows the cutest thing he’s ever seen in this bar is about to walk away.

“Wait,” he blurts, and Cute Guy pauses. “I—could you—what’s your name?”

Cute Guy stares at him in bewilderment. “What?”

“Your _name_ ,” Ryoga says impatiently, or maybe desperately. “I can’t just call you Cute Guy in my head forever, can I?”

Cute Guy flushes red and so does Ryoga because _oh fuck did I just say that_ and he can’t take them back now and he most definitely isn’t coming back to this bar again.

“Um…” Cute Guy fiddles with a strand of magenta hair. “You… think I’m cute?”

Ryoga looks at the floor. It’s dirty. The karaoke man is now belting out a second unrequited love song. His mouth tastes repulsive from all the cheap beers. “God, I hope you’re gay or this is going to get really uncomfortable.”

Cute Guy shrugs a little and smiles. “I don’t really have a preference.” He gets close again, places his hands back on Ryoga’s waist, and resumes their awkward shuffle. Ryoga exhales through his nose, because he doesn’t want Cute Guy to get a whiff of his beer breath. “I’m Yuma.”

Ryoga’s really distracted by their hips swaying so close together that they’re in danger of touching, and with so many beers in him, he probably wouldn’t be able to keep from rising up if they did. So when Yuma asks his name in return, he’s distracted and embarrassed and panics and blurts out “Nasch” after a stupid internet nickname he has.

But Yuma doesn’t question it, and at the end of the night when Yuma is entering Ryoga’s phone number into his phone because _I would like to see you again soon_ he enters Ryoga’s name as “Nasch.”

* * *

Yuma lives in an apartment not too far from Ryoga’s, so Ryoga walks over for their first “real” date with a pack of semi-decent local craft ales in hand, dressed in a tight black shirt and a purple jacket. (Kaito says the jacket is gaudy but Kaito also wears leggings as pants so what does he know.) Yuma opens the door, all smiles, and invites Ryoga in. He’s dressed in a black tanktop and skinny jeans and he’s got a nice ass, which Ryoga admires for a minute when Yuma bends down to shove the shoes at the door out of the way. His shirt rides up for a second and Ryoga even sees little dimples in the small of his back.

God, how unfair.

There are boxes in the common room, shoved against the wall, and what is clearly a new sofa against another wall. A folding table with two fold-up chairs is the only thing in the kitchen, and several boxes of take-out are sitting unopened on the counter.

“I just moved in,” Yuma explains, gesturing toward one of the chairs and the takeout boxes. Ryoga sits and pulls a box of noodles toward himself.  

“You’re new here?”

Yuma nods and swallows his food. “Got a new job.”

“What do you do?”

He frowns a little, noodles hanging out of his mouth. It is very distracting. “Kinda hard to explain? Some kind of consulting, I guess.”

“Like, financial?”

“Nah, more like… archaeology. People ask me to do impact evaluations before doing construction on sites that might have history.”

Ryoga has never heard of a job like this before but it sounds kind of cool if not really geeky. He’s about to ask how Yuma landed a gig like that when Yuma redirects the question.

“What about you, Nasch?”

Ryoga freezes, chopsticks halfway to his mouth, as he had completely forgotten that he’d given Yuma a fake name. He should probably say something, but what kind of asshole gives a fake name to begin with? One who has something to hide? He definitely doesn’t want Yuma to think he’s some kind of criminal. Not anymore, anyway. He might as well have given Yuma his stupid former gang name instead. At least Yuma would have known “Shark” wasn’t a real name.

“I work at a little sushi place,” he says in a rush, shoveling half the box of noodles in his mouth as quickly as he can.

“Oh, that sounds really nice!” Yuma smiles and Ryoga has to look away. “We should go sometime.”

Ryoga actually hates working there and only does because it’s the only place that would hire him with his criminal background. “Sure, I guess.”

Dinner passes with some small talk—Ryoga learns that Yuma likes rice balls, some card game Ryoga used to be into, baseball, and hates soap operas because his sister used to make him watch them with her when he was younger (ironic, seeing as he had unknowingly landed himself in one)—and Yuma finally gets up to clear the table. Cleanup is easy; he puts the leftovers in the refrigerator, cleans up the boxes, and dumps everything in the recycling.

Then they’re standing together in the kitchen in silence and Ryoga doesn’t know what to do.

“I need to use your toilet,” he says finally, and Yuma leads him through the bedroom to the attached bathroom. Ryoga locks the door behind him and stares at his reflection in the mirror. _This_ is who Yuma thinks is Nasch the sushi chef, when in reality it’s Ryoga the former criminal who mostly cleans the kitchen and does dishes.

 _Goddamn it,_ he thinks, clenching the sink, _what the hell am I doing here?_

“Nasch?” Yuma calls from the bedroom, and Ryoga grimaces.

“Just a minute.”

He _needs_ to tell Yuma the truth, the sooner the better, because the more he drags this out the more attached he’s going to get and the worse the betrayal will feel when Yuma inevitably finds out who he is. He sighs, washes his hands, and opens the door to find Yuma sitting on the edge of a rather small bed in his skintight, low-cut tanktop and too-tight pants.

The words are there, wanting to burst out, but so is something else and he can’t cope with two things like that at the same time.

“Why were you at the bar?” he says in a rush.

“What?”

“You weren’t there to drink. You didn’t even know what kind of drink to get. I don’t think you were there to get with someone. Why?”

Yuma frowns and Ryoga’s heart pounds. He doesn’t know why he needs to know this, only that Yuma’s answer will dictate whether Ryoga comes clean or continues this ridiculous charade, which will probably end in a one-night stand and a lifetime of regret.

“Someone to be with, I guess?” Yuma answers finally, and Ryoga wants to hit his head on the wall because he might have secretly been hoping _a long-term relationship_ wasn’t something Yuma was interested in. Instead, he leads his stiff legs over to the bed and sits down next to Yuma.

“Yuma—“

“If that’s not what you want, that’s fine.” Yuma leans back on one arm, body angled toward Ryoga. “Better to get that out of the way early, right?”

_Goddamn it, goddamn it, goddamn it, goddamn—_

“Someone to be with for a night, or several nights?”

Yuma smiles a little. “Lots of nights, eventually.”

**Goddamn it—**

Before he knows what he’s doing or who leaned in first or where Yuma’s hands are, they’re kissing and the regret leaves Ryoga for one blissful moment.

* * *

Ryoga discovers halfway through leaving several hickeys on Yuma’s body that there _is_ a tattoo on his collarbone, a sort of jagged upside-down golden triangle. He doesn’t ask about it at that moment because his mouth is a little preoccupied and Yuma is breathing so hard he can barely make coherent sounds anyway.

* * *

Kaito scrutinizes him over the top of a lab report he’s editing. Or pretending to edit. Does Kaito even have a real science degree? Ryoga’s not sure Kaito’s qualified to call himself an actual scientist. “So… you slept with him. On the second date.”

“No!” Ryoga insists too loudly, slamming his hands on the table. His coffee splashes on the table a little. The other patrons of the café glance over at him.

“You’re being unsightly,” Kaito chides him, and takes a dignified sip of his own coffee.

Ryoga scowls and wipes up the spilled coffee with his sleeve because it’s easier than getting up for a napkin. He regrets it immediately because coffee _stains_ and damn it he kind of likes this shirt. “No,” he insists again, quieter.

Kaito arches one obnoxious eyebrow.

“Look,” Ryoga says through gritted teeth, “I—we didn’t.” (It wasn’t for lack of trying, either, Ryoga thinks.) “We just—we made out.”

“On his bed.”

“Look,” Ryoga begins again, but he doesn’t have anything to say, really, so he taps his fingers on the table and takes an extra-big gulp of coffee. It is still hot and scorches his throat and every taste bud in his mouth dies instantly. Now he regrets two things about this luncheon, not including talking to Kaito about his failing love life to begin with. Also he kind of wants some water now.

Kaito holds out a hand questioningly and raises his other eyebrow. “Look at _what_ , Ryoga.”

“He fell asleep,” Ryoga blurts out, because somehow to him it is better to admit _that_ than to admit that he might have kind of wanted to make it past first base on the second date, and also that he felt super guilty about a certain other aspect of this newly budding relationship, namely that it was built on a lie.

Kaito makes a face like he’s not sure he wants to laugh or shake his head but before he can make up his mind, Ryoga’s cell vibrates on the table and the text notification light flashes.

Naturally, Kaito gets to it first.

Whatever embarrassment Ryoga might have had before was about to be ramped up.

“’Hey, sorry I fell asleep last night, I’ve had a lot of early mornings at work lately,’” Kaito reads, and Ryoga buries his face in his hands to hide the burning. Of course, of _course_ it was Yuma. Ryoga could only pray to any and all gods in the heavens above that Yuma didn’t say— “Love to do it again soon, _semicolon, closed parenthesis_ , talk to you when I get off work—” 

There is an almost deafening pause.

“—Nasch.”

This is it, Ryoga decides, the time where he actually _does_ change his name and leaves the country.

“Oh my god, you—“

That’s when Ryoga hears the second worse sound he’s ever heard, a close contender to the sound his sister’s cat makes while in heat.

Kaito is laughing.

Not his humorless “heh” or a snort or the sound which somewhat resembles a sneeze that Kaito tries to pass off as humor, but full-on _laughter,_ which Ryoga was not aware Kaito had the capacity to express until that moment.

“You—you gave him a fake name?” And Ryoga looks up finally, wincing, and finds Kaito with literal tears in his eyes. Half the café is staring. Ryoga can never return here again. “Oh my god Ryoga, you are—fuck, you are a—a goddamn _weenie_.”

“Now _you’re_ causing a scene,” Ryoga hisses, and it’s true because a few people are not-so-discreetly filming the whole thing with their phones. “And I’m not a _weenie_.” Who even uses that word past primary school? Kaito Tenjo, apparently.

“You definitely are.” Kaito wipes his eyes on the back of his hand and picks up his marking pen. “You meet a cute guy you definitely want to smang—“

“ _Excuse_ me?”

“—and two dates in, you still haven’t told him your real name.”

(Maybe it’s not the best time to tell Kaito it might _technically_ have been their first _actual_ date.)

“You’re useless,” Kaito says, shaking his head, and he sets down his empty mug.

“I don’t know what to do, what if he hates me?”

Kaito huffs. “Think of it this way. If you tell him now, instead of him finding out—and he will—he’ll be a lot less pissed off. He might not be into you anymore but at least you won’t have completely wrecked him.”

This is sound advice. “Whatever.”

Kaito gathers his stuff and shoves it in his bag. “You’re welcome. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have other, _real_ problems to take care of than your failing love life.”

* * *

Yuma’s head rests in his hand, propped up by the elbow on the boardwalk railing. He’s staring at the sea, red eyes reflecting the gold and purple and blazing orange of the sunset on the water, but he’s not enjoying the view. His eyes are squinting against the light, brows furrowed tightly. He’s chewing on his bottom lip. From this angle, Ryoga can even see the red marks on Yuma’s neck and collarbones, pale against his tanned skin, and the base of the strange pyramid tattoo.

There’s nothing more to be done, Ryoga decides, and he stays quiet because he’s already said his bit. Short of telling Yuma _exactly_ what he had done to get arrested (breaking and entering a government building with a side of property damage), he’d pretty much admitted that he was kind of a criminal thug, and a lying asshole to boot.

He supposes he deserves the cold silence, just as he deserved it when Yuma left the ramen shop in the middle of the second date (third? he's having a hard time deciding which encounter their first date had been), just as he probably deserves to be told that Yuma doesn’t want to see him ever again.

Instead, Yuma tucks a strand of hair behind his ear. “So, which is it? Ryoga or Nasch?”

“Ryoga. Ryoga Kamishiro. You can look it up, if you want.” Everything was there, on the internet. Yuma could find out which Ministry member’s office he’d broken into, and the fact that the Ministry official had convinced the courts to let him off if he promised to pay back the damage to the office. At his job, he’d be paying it back until he was ninety.

Yuma’s gaze drops to the railing. “I think… I’d like to be alone now.”

Ryoga nods. That’s understandable. So he shoves his hands in his pockets and walks away.

* * *

The good thing about work is that it is often so fast-paced that he doesn’t have time to brood. If he doesn’t make sushi fast enough, the head chef yells at him, if he makes the sushi too fast and doesn’t put the right amount of whatever in it, he gets yelled at, if he doesn’t wash the dishes fast enough, he gets yelled at—

“There’s a spot on this plate!”

He sighs.

By the end of the night, he’s covered in dirty soap water, his feet are killing him, and he can’t get the _hamachi_ out from under his fingernails. He thinks about a hot bath and some noodles and tries not to think about the fact that he still has two days left to work this week.

But there’s someone waiting for him next to the store when he closes the door behind him.

Yuma gives him a weak smile, as though he’s not even sure why he’s there, and Ryoga sure as hell doesn’t know.

“Don’t you have work tomorrow?” he says with zero tact, not looking at Yuma.

“Government holiday,” Yuma replies, and he falls into step with Ryoga.

They walk in silence for a while, Ryoga adjusting his bag from hand to hand, trying discreetly to dig the fish from his fingernails with his thumb nail, and he finally notices that Yuma is still in a suit, carrying a briefcase, and his long hair and magenta bangs don’t seem to go with the professional businessman look. At least he ditched the earrings, Ryoga notes, though he finds himself a little disappointed.

“The Ministry buildings are thirteen train stops away from here,” he notes.

“I know.”

“You didn’t come here for the sushi.”

“No.”

He stops. “Why?”

Yuma sighs softly, looks past Ryoga at a closed shop door, and bites his lip. “My mother taught me that some people might just need a second chance,” he says simply, and tears burn at the corners of Ryoga’s eyes. It’s dark enough that he hopes Yuma doesn’t see them, but he turns away and stalks off again anyway just in case.

“What if some people don’t want a second chance,” he says gruffly, and then realizes Yuma hasn’t followed him. He turns his head. Yuma’s staring after him.

They’re about ten feet away and Yuma responds quietly, but Ryoga can still (barely) make out the words.

“All I can do is offer it. No one has to take it.”

* * *

“Siblings?”

“Twin sister, Rio.”

“No way. You’re a twin?”

“Unfortunately. She nags like she’s my mother.”

Yuma laughs and takes a sip of his beer. “This is terrible,” he remarks.

“No one’s making you drink it.”

Yuma sticks out his tongue and he looks like a teenager in his father’s suit more than an adult man with a salary government job. He tugs his tie loose and unbuttons the top two buttons of his shirt. “Okay, okay, um… deck type.”

“What?”

“You know!” Yuma grins goofily and leans forward. He’s had exactly half a beer and Ryoga is convinced he’s already intoxicated. “Duel Monsters!”

Ryoga hasn’t played that game since he was like sixteen, and he tells Yuma so. Yuma looks disappointed.

“Well, do you still have your deck?”

“I haven’t had it in like five years. I think Rio has it in a box somewhere.”

Yuma pouts. “What was your deck type?”

Ryoga shrugs and takes a mouthful of beer. “Sharks, I think.”

“Aw, that’s cute.”

“Sharks are ferocious predators,” Ryoga begins, but Yuma just laughs and Ryoga decides to leave it there.

“What is your tattoo?” He points at the edge of the pyramid thing, just visible through Yuma’s open shirt.

“Hm? Oh, this… it’s a key.” The laughter fades from Yuma’s face and Ryoga immediately regrets his curiosity. “My dad used to wear a key like this around his neck. Said it would unlock the door to another world. He liked… exploring.” Yuma clears his throat and takes a too-big gulp of the beer he hated. “Then he just never came back. They never found him.”

“I’m… really sorry.” He knows the feeling of losing a parent too, but at least in his case, he knows exactly what happened to his.

Yuma shrugs and rubs casually at his nose. “Life is unpredictable.”

They sit in awkward silence in Ryoga’s tiny, dark kitchen for a long minute, Yuma finishing the beer and staring at the bottle as if hoping more will magically appear just so he has something to do with his hands and mouth. Finally, Yuma glances upward.

“Um… do you have a tattoo?”

He does, but he doesn’t like to think about it. The pain is still there, ten years later, and sometimes he pretends that life was someone else’s. He thinks about shrugging off the question, or changing the conversation to something that doesn’t completely suck, but if this whatever-this-is he might have with Yuma keeps going, Yuma will find out about the tattoo anyway and probably ask questions about it. So Ryoga nods and shrugs out of his shirt and turns his bare back to Yuma, where the dragon-shaped crest between his shoulder blades stands out against his pale skin. He tenses when a finger touches it, traces it, and he stifles the noise threatening to escape his throat.

“You hate it,” Yuma remarks quietly.

“It was their way of marking me as one of theirs,” Ryoga says bitterly.

“I’m sorry.”

Ryoga half-shrugs and pulls the shirt back over his head. “Life is sometimes unpredictable, but sometimes you get what you put into it.”

Yuma nods absently. They both glance at the clock on the wall.

“I should go,” Yuma says. “Do you work tomorrow?”

“I’m off at nine.”

“Would you like to come help me unpack?” A small smile reappears on Yuma’s face, and it makes Ryoga smile a little too.

“That’s a lame fifth date.”

“I thought it was our fourth.”

Ryoga laughs quietly and leads Yuma to the door. “Want me to walk you home?”

“Nah. I’ll be fine. I only had one beer.”

They stand in the doorway together for a moment. Ryoga fiddles with the doorknob. It’s absurd that he’s this nervous about asking for a goodnight kiss when they’ve literally already exchanged saliva, but _that_ relationship was a little bit of a lie and this was the real thing, probably, but goddamn maybe Kaito was right and he was a weenie.

Yuma takes the initiative and leans into the kiss first. It isn’t the sloppy face-eating kind that they’d probably practiced during that first non-bar date but Ryoga would be damned if it weren’t a hell of a lot nicer.

“Well, goodnight,” Yuma says with his face red, and Ryoga lets him out, feeling completely different than he had when he woke up that morning.

* * *

Seven months later, Ryoga’s helping Yuma unpack again, but this time it’s both of their things.

They’d argued about everything from what kind of drapes they wanted in the living room (Yuma wanted open windows and Ryoga wanted heavy drapes) to whether there should be carpet (Yuma yes, Ryoga absolutely not; they compromised by getting hardwood floors and a fuzzy rug at the foot of the bed that Ryoga found garish but, well, you win some, you lose some) to what kind of countertops (both agreed that linoleum was right out and got granite, which is the obviously superior choice).

“Hey, Ryoga.”

Ryoga looks up from organizing the books on the bookshelf. Yuma’s holding a dusty little shoebox and has a huge grin on his face.

Ryoga eyes the box warily. “If that’s another tarantula—“

“Oh come on, tarantulas are harmless,” Yuma says, rolling his eyes, but he correctly interprets Ryoga’s suspicious glare and backtracks. “No, it’s not a tarantula, just open it—“

Still suspicious, Ryoga takes the box and shakes it gently. It sounds like bits of paper and nothing like the _scritch scritch_ of a giant spider, so he cautiously opens the lid—taking care to hold the box far enough away from his face that nothing will jump out and attach itself to his face again—and finds—

“Your deck,” Yuma says proudly.

Ryoga frowns at the contents of the box—old trading cards, some with bent edges, all covered in dust—and isn’t sure what to say.

“I contacted your sister and asked if she’d send this over,” Yuma says in a rush, as though it were the greatest present anyone could ever get. “She said she wasn’t sure where it was but she finally found it!”

“You went through all that trouble,” Ryoga says wryly, “for a Duel Monsters deck that I don’t even remember how to play.”

“You’ll remember!” Yuma takes Ryoga by the hands and drags him to the kitchen table, where another, much better cared for deck sits at one place. Yuma grins and plops down across from Ryoga.

“We have a lot of unpacking to do still,” Ryoga says uncertainly, but Yuma waves him off.

“We’ve been doing nothing but work for two weeks. Let’s just take a short break.”

With a sigh, Ryoga pulls the battered deck out of the box. The bottom card has a black background, and it takes him a second to remember why.

“Separate your Extra Deck,” Yuma reminds him.

Extra Deck, right… Ryoga had used a lot of XYZ monsters. It took about two minutes to sort through all the cards to separate the XYZ monsters from the main deck, but with each card he finds, he can’t help but smile.

Black Ray Lancer… Aero Shark… Shark Caesar…

“All right,” he says when he’s finished shuffling his deck. He grins. “Ready to lose?”

Yuma returns the grin. “Bring it.”

 


End file.
